Cooling fast is important so that you can get the "cold break." I am not exactly sure what that does, but its something to do with the protiens. I am sure someone else will chime in on exactly what it does

A wort chiller is one of the "Essential" bits of kit and is worth spending a few $$ on. you can make your own, it will last the duration of you brewing career and it will go from extract to PM to AG. It's one thing you don't need to upgrade.

I'd save money on other things. Stick with plastic rather than glass or AU rather than SS but get an IC......

We just had our first brew day last weekend but I thought we came up with a clever solution seeing how we didn't have any special equipment.

We have a double kitchen sink (although you could do it with a single one too)

What we did was we filled the since with cool tap water and set the brew kettle in it. Then we start the a siphon from one sink to the other and then turned on the cool water to get equilibrium. That way the water around the wort stayed nice and cool. It took about 40 minutes to get from 212º to 73º.

Hope this helps.

BTW make sure that you sanitize your siphon before using it and make sure the tip of the siphon is below the level of the bottom of the sink. (otherwise it won't work at all)

i use my kitchen sink and it usually takes about 30 minutes. i fill up the water once and it heats up pretty quick, then i refill twice. on the second refill i add ice...usually about 2 trays. i always get to about 72F in about 30 minutes.

some say a wort chiller might be easier, but in my small kitchen it seems like it would be a bit of a mess. can't have a sink hook-up either, with my faucet and i figure i use about the same amount of water.